


Faux Retirement

by WhumpTown



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Hurt Hotch, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown
Summary: Hotch gets shot
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia & Aaron Hotchner
Comments: 3
Kudos: 69





	Faux Retirement

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to write more Criminal Minds fanfiction but I have been out of the fandom so long I can't even conceive any ideas for fics. I just desperately want more Hotch & Garcia content and more Hotchniss but like, who's gonna do it if I don't????????

On the day that Hotch told her about the plans being made _for_ her, he was kind enough to warn her. There was something about the low light in his office, the office soon to be her own, that made her realize how serious he was. It scared her more than anything else because she wasn’t ready to have him bare his soul. 

_“This job-”_

She remembers what little she can recall of Gideon and Rossi's haunted retirement. The way Hotch came back to work just a month after he was stabbed nine times by Foyet. How none of them have escaped the job. Not when age made it hard or when the love of their lives were walking away. 

_“-it steals your humanity.”_

His apartment for months was littered with Foyet. The case files he couldn’t get rid of. Even after Foyet was gone the cases outlived him. Emily always wondered why Hotch left them out. It never made any sense but logic is often stolen by grief and fear.

 _“Don’t let it do that to you, Emily. Draw a line.”_ He leaned forward, elbows on his desk. It made her realize just how serious he was being. This wasn’t a customary sort of meeting. She knew Hotch got thrown into this job barely able to keep his head above the water. What he knew, he had to observe and learn the hard way. He’s sparing her that. _“It will consume you, there is nothing you can do about that, but if you need- I know a few remedies that don’t resort in hangovers in the morning.”_

She could really use one of those remedies right about now.

“I’m grounded,” Jack informs them, frowning dejectedly at the sandwich in his lap and the milkshake Rossi keeps failing to get him to drink. He wipes his eyes roughly, frustrated with the tears that keep pouring down his face despite his best interest to keep them contained. “I should be at home.”

Rossi has failed tremendously in all of his advances to soothe Jack. He was never good with kids but Jack was always different. Just like he was never good at working with the recruits each spring trying their hand at profiling. Hotch was his exception then. While both father and son like to pretend to have nothing in common with one another, Rossi knows better. But now he finds it impossible to help Jack despite his best attempts and his insights. 

Emily crouches down in front of Jack, smiling softly at him. “Your father told me that you got into a fight.” It’s more or less true. Overcompensating and anxious the other day after their never-ending meeting Hotch treated her to lunch and she was glad to get out of the building. He seemed coy to a companion to suffer with and it took him ten minutes to start telling her about Jack. Now, the insight is proving helpful.

Jack blushes, “he told you about that?”

Emily nods and smiles. “He may have grounded you but he was… proud.” She can remember the way Hotch shook his head to hide his confused smile. “Mostly, he was conflicted about what to do. Said-” she remembers how his face fell suddenly. “He said you mom would have known what to do.”

Jack looks back down at his lap. 

Hotch told her Jack was suspended for three days for fighting with another boy. To his credit, Jack held off for a very long time. The boy, Evan, is a problem child. His teachers suspect he’s being abused at home but social workers have been unable to remove him from his home. He’s been bullying Jack and several other students. His specific interest in Jack is Hotch and the FBI. No matter how far Evan pushed Jack, the boy resisted but Jack drew the line when Evan began taunting another boy James. 

James is also being abused at home. Jack refused to stand by and watch James only safe haven, school, be taken away by the likes of Evan.

“He’s not mad,” Emily clarifies and she wonders how Jack could ever think Hotch was mad. “He’s a…” she decides to poke fun at Hotch just a little. Maybe it’ll be enough to win Jack over. “He’s a bit emotionally constipated,” Emily sells it with a grin and Jack poorly hides his own grin. “Eat up,” she squeezes Jack’s shoulder. “The last thing we need is two Hotchner’s underweight.”

Jack shakes his head but once she steps back. They give him some room, he takes a bite of the sandwich. The teenage metabolism kicks in and Emily grins rather smugly at Rossi. Rubbing it in that she speaks Hotchner better than him.

"Garcia!"

The blonde comes from behind the doors they’d been denied access, _No Visitors Beyond This Point_. Her bright eyes are tear stained, mascara cried off her face. She looks nothing like the woman they left just two days away. Broken and bone tired. A strange type of fear gathers in their chest for the type of tragedy that would cause this kind of reaction from such a strong woman. 

Emily rises from her chair and there’s something hypnotic about the way it makes her feel. Power, she realizes, on this team has never been given to the strongest. Physical power doesn’t make a leader. Gideon, Rossi, nor even Hotch were ever the strongest members of the team. To be broken, cracked in places that are unable to be repaired, and yet still standing. Unable to be repaired and unable to be broken, that’s what made them good leaders.

Emily takes Garcia into her arms, pulling the normally unbreakable technical analyst. “What happened?”

They know a handful of things, none of which are conclusive:

Anderson picked Jack up from school today at 1:30 via Garcia’s instructions.

There was a great disturbance at the FBI building today at 12:45. The news has no further coverage.

Garcia sent them all a mass text to meet her at Saint Sebastions as soon as they could.

"There-There was a shooter in the building," Garcia sobs, her hands taking fistfuls of Emily's shirt in her hands. "Hotch was coming to get me." She could see him every time she closed her eyes. She was running down the hall when Hotch met her at the top of the hall. While she may have been panicked, ongoing shots being fired all too close to them, Hotch was the picture of calm. He was frowning, left hand extended for her to take. She watched the bullet hit him. His face twisted but he swallowed the pain and motioned for her to hurry. "He would be fine if he had left me."

Emily better than to believe that. "Oh, Pen," Emily shakes her head because she doesn't know how to explain that Hotch is incapable of leaving them behind. He still emails her on cases to see how Reid is handling a teen victim or how the new agents are cracking. "I know that's not true." 

Garcia hiccups miserably and pulls herself from Emily's arms. This isn't about her, she doesn't need to be consoled. Not when her boss man is sitting in the ICU all alone. "Uhm," she carefully drags her finger underneath her eyes to salvage what she can of her eyeliner. "They moved him back to the ICU, we can go back."

"Right," Emily mumbles looking back at the others. She can't imagine most of them would want to go back. To them, Hotch is just the director. What they know of Hotch is little and biased by Emily exaggerating annoyance with him for doing his job. "Does-"

"Kiddo," Rossi sighs. "Go."

"Right."

The two of them have made a habit of hospital visits. By now, they've bypassed all the small talk and she knows, from too much experience, what to do

She picks his limp hand from the stretcher. Once upon a time, they were just kids in her mother’s too-big house. He worked the security detail and she made sure he got a run for his money. How many times had she tripped the alarm on her window just so he’d come outside and sit with her on the roof? Then they grew up. She graduated from college and he got married to the pretty blonde he spent his breaks talking to. 

When she saw him again, the youth had left the creases of his once happy eyes. He looked tired past the sort of exhaustion that stains the bags under the eyes. He seemed bone-tired like he could fall asleep where he stood and might never wake up. Sapped. She hated him and how he’d changed. His laughter was gone and replaced with a deep rumbling voice on edge.

She was there through Foyet and he saved her from Ian. Because they may have grown older, changed but deep down they both wanted nothing more than each other’s company. The cost of each other never seemed too high.

“I should have retired.”

She looks up from the white mattress, dragging her eyes over their joined hands, and finds sleepy brown eyes looking back at her. He’s turned his head to the side, pushing the oxygen canal under his nose askew on his face. She shakes her head at him and looks down at their hands. His fingers are limp around hers but his thumb has climbed upwards, granting her his approval without having to say a word. 

“And done what?” He’s not going to be satisfied with anything short of a rewarding and exciting hobby. “Would you have gardened? Learned a new language or how to juggle?”

He sighs thoughtfully, turns his head back up the ceiling. Learning languages is more her style. While it would be fun, he also knows Emily would want to tutor him and in the worst case, she’d want to learn beside him. The thought of Emily Prentiss as a tutor is scary and thrilling. He was a prosecutor, a good one, and a unit chief so juggling is a little ridiculous. Demeaning. “Gardening could be relaxing,” he offers. It would be good for his blood pressure from years of overwhelming stress.

Emily snorts, “no. Not for you.” He mistakes her to mean, gardening isn’t something he could do. He opens his mouth to argue but she squeezes his fingers. “You’re a perfectionist.” She can imagine him now in his khakis and a polo measuring the distance between each flower. Knowing him, he might even color code them, the anal-retentive bastard. 

“Why are you being mean to me,” he mumbles. Groggily, his left hand comes up to his face. He dislodges the canal under his nose. “I got shot, Emily.” He lets his head roll over to look at her limply, frowning in a way that borders patheticness rather than his normal grumpiness. 

She cherishes his friendship but she doesn’t say it enough or ever for that matter. Tears sting her eyes and she has to look away. He’s got a guilt complex like no other human she’s ever met and the last thing he needs is her to add to it by making something about him about her. She clears her throat, " I’m sorry."

He looks over at her with bloodshot eyes. He's getting tired and the drugs are weighing him down. "You didn't shoot me, " he argues. His mind isn't up for games at the moment. He's tired and hurt. “Why,” he swallows thickly, groggy and slowly edging dangerously to exhaustion. He squints, already having forgotten what he was going to be saying. Looking over at her, he frowns, “You okay?”

She smiles sadly at him, squeezing his hand. “I’m okay,” she reassures him, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “You’re okay too. You’re just a little high.”

He smiles, it’s unabashed and goofy. 

There’s a knock at the door and Rossi sticks his head in. He looks them both over, eyes flashing in that knowing way. “You up for some more visitors?” 

He’s not given the chance to come to his own decision. He offers a reassuring smile to Reid and is limp and compliant when Rossi presses a kiss to his forehead. Jack makes his entrance hesitantly but takes a seat beside Emily and visibly relaxed. It's Garcia who worries him. She doesn't shower him with any goods, not even a hug or a blanket. She can't even look at him. 

"Garcia," he calls hoarsely, the sound of his voice startling not only him but the whole room. He can't ignore the tears that fill her eyes. "Come here," he beckons her with a finger. She steps forward, now standing at the end of his bed. He motions again. She looks to Emily as if to silently ask what the hell is wrong with him, but she steps forward. "Garcia," he grumbles, motioning her closer yet again. 

Eventually, she stands at his side. She's blushing softly. He opens his arms up, offering her a hug. "Oh sir," she whispers, tears falling. She accepts the hug, being careful not to squeeze. "I'm so sorry."

"Nonsense," he reassures her. "I wasn't going to leave you behind."

She pulls away from his hug and looks down at him sadly. She shakes her head, "you are just the sweetest man. Do you know that? You spoil me."

Emily laughs, quick to cover her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbles around her hand, still laughing. "He's just so high," she explains.

Garcia pats his cheek, smiling down at him. "It's okay, boss man. We won't hold this against you."

Emily's snort says otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Downloaded Tiktok today bc a friend told me there's Hotch content and you can call me a whore but you better put Thomas Gibson's in front of it


End file.
